Note: These changes are numbered for the ease of following along. These are not necessarily the order in which I would like the changes to occur, if they do at all.

I live in an area where gyms are few and far between. As I mentioned, I see one gym on the map by my house, but it’s on a divided highway and the gym is not easy to get to unless I am going that direction. Usually, by that time in my drive I just want to get home. It is that close. Walking is dangerous, no sidewalks, so I skip that gym more often than not. So I drive to others.

I know I can’t be the only player who has gone through this. Among the limited gyms that I see on days where I go outside of my normal commute, sometimes I see one that is my color/team (Blue/Mystic). I drive (or walk if I am in a place I can walk to safely) I go to put one of my Pokemon in. It’s full up with 6 Pokemon in it. Even worse, at least one has been in for way more than 8 hours 20 minutes (the amount of time it takes to get 50 free coins, which is the goal, especially when the gym is a gold gym). I have seen where all 6 Pokemon have been in for 48+ hours! This is even more frustrating when the next closest gym is miles away! This causes lost opportunities to make coins the only reliable free way and discourages players. I have limited opportunities to play during the day. My commute does not put me near a gym where I can stop at. (No, I do not drive past the one in my “home screen”). I don’t have a gym close enough to walk to from where I work on break. I don’t have the freedom to hop in my car to go anywhere at lunch. 30 minutes go by real fast at lunch time. I have responsibilities at home. Even on weekends, there are only so many gyms I encounter. So every gym is valuable.

I have seen where some would like to get back to 10 players in a gym which sounds good, but only kicks the can a little bit down the road. There may be more opportunities to get into a gym, but that may not always be the best solution. After all, if 6 player to a gym can get crowded with 8:20+ people, so can a 10 player gym. Maybe in that area one particular color is dominant or one player contacts all their same color buddies and the gym is full up quick. Besides, I usually play solo when I get out. Solo fighting a 6 player gym is usually long enough as it is per round. 10 players would be insane! (And if I do play with a friend, the friend I team up with the most is on the Red/Valor team. We’ve worked out a deal where we alternate gyms that we beat of Yellow/Instinct. Still, we have run into where there is only one Yellow Gym and that’s the only gym!)

The Same Color/Team Challenge works basically the same way as if you were fighting a gym, but it’s one on one. If you want in on a gym that is the same color as you are that is full up, you can fight to knock someone out of the gym and replace them with your own Pokemon. To keep it fair, there are a few conditions.

1: Basic Conditions- You must be the same color/same team as the gym you are challenging, it’s full, and at least one (or more) of the Pokemon has been in for 8 hours 20 minutes or more.

I know that there is a time occupied component to how much XP you get at a certain gym which makes the medals change. This is only one way to earn XP though. Berry Feeding, Completing Raids, Defeating Pokemon in the Gym, Deploying Defenders, and Spinning the Stop all add to the XP of a gym. So if you can get back to the gym and challenge another player out, you would get Defeating Pokemon in the Gym and Deploying a Defender points immediately from the challenge. I would also imagine that a player would Spin the Stop as well, and I know I feed at least one berry to top my Pokemon’s health off (besides getting the 20 Stardust). Even if no other Pokemon qualifies for the Challenge, spin the spinner. Maybe you can also feed one or more of the players of the same color if you are feeling generous. At least you get XP and Stardust!

2: Number of challenges

Optimal: One challenge per player per calendar day. Let’s keep the gyms cycling among a larger group of players, if possible. The challenge is not considered an item in the item count.

Alternative: First challenge per day is free. If you get knocked out via this system, you get another challenge. Limit to two challenges per day.

3: With this comes a visual cue to know if we can challenge. Ideally, a challenge flag icon (think American/Canadian Gridiron Football) or a challenge available cue of some sort would be used. This could come up when you encounter such a gym, or be on the item page. This would avoid a lot of frustration of knowing/not knowing if you have a challenge available.

4: The challenger must have no other Pokemon in gyms at the time of the challenge. I want to encourage the challenge system, but it should be fair to all.

Other reasonable mutually exclusive suggestions for limits:

1 – Maximum of one other controlled gym. I have to travel to get to a gym, so I can understand not penalizing a player for having only one gym, especially in an area where gyms are not plentiful.

2 – You have at least one gym in a similar situation where you can get challenged out you get a challenge. I have had gyms where I was in 24 hours or more very easily. I know of gyms that haven’t changed color control for a week or longer! So this is reasonable.

3 – One challenge per day regardless. All of these scenarios can be easily monitored by the game with a simple flag system. Players can look at gyms and see how many they are defending at one time and if they have a Pokemon in a gym 8:20 or more.

4 – If you are in a gold gym, make 8:20 in the gym, and there are 6 players in the gym, if someone of the same color comes to challenge, your Pokemon is automatically ejected. After the 50 coin max, there is nothing left to gain being in a gold gym.

Hopefully this is fair enough for everyone and encourages players to go out and seek gyms that would be otherwise full. Also, these gyms would cycle more often and make the game coins easier to access for all.

The more I play the new Buddy System, the more I like it. I like the idea of feeding (good way to use up some berries) my buddy to make it active. The hearts system is fun. I like gaining them and look forward to getting as many as I can per day. However, there are still improvements that can be made.

First thing that is very frustrating is the “Visit a New Place”. Maybe it’s inertia at work, but I have found a couple of places I like playing since it has a lot of stops and is easy to walk. It also has a lot of Pokemon to be caught, which is the best part of the game. There are not too many places that I know of in my area that has this much that is close to me. I can imagine other rural players are in a similar situation. Only in the more urban areas would there be a lot more places to go and play outside. At first, it was easy since even place I played might have counted. Now I cannot really find too many new places and it seems very random to get that heart. Sometimes when I go somewhere I have not been in a while, it counts. Sometimes not. Why? Make it something like a new place in 96 hours or something like that. This way you don’t get credit for the same place every day, but at least there is a chance on weekends (or days off from work/school) that a player can get this extra heart. After all, that is the only way to get into the bonus where a Buddy can get double hearts bonus.

Speaking on the hearts, why is it a secret how far along we are to Best Buddy? We know how far along we are to Best Friends with other players. Instead of play together for x days with a friend, it’s create x number of bonds (or however the game wants to call it the small hearts). I work two or more buddies at a time. I do this since once I max out the feeding hearts, I usually am done for the day with that buddy, unless I still need to walk a certain distance. I then change to the other buddy to get that one closer to Best Buddy for the CP Boost. I also pick the buddies that I know I want to max out. I usually have multiple buddies with 2 or more hearts (Great Buddy) to get the Catch Assist that I am working on. I would like to know how far along I am towards that… especially as I get closer to Best Buddy. It is very difficult after a while to tell since the fill of that last heart gets to be such a thin sliver. At least with friends, that sliver is translated into a number of days to play together for us.

Also, please move the gifts from the Buddy away from the camera button. It’s a pain trying to click on the gift to open it.

UPDATE: March 4, 2020: Even though I forgot to mention this, I was hoping for Best Buddy Medals like we have for Best Friends and I saw this afternoon that we have such. Hooray!

Let me start by saying that Spotlight Hour is a GREAT idea. Putting a spotlight on an uncommon or rarer Pokemon is a great idea. Maybe some players can fill Pokedex with one or two new Pokemon if it is new to them, or they have not seen enough to get the evolution. It even started out with a great Pokemon in Onix.

Onix is uncommon enough recently that getting it in a higher rate was a good thing. I heard some complaining from players who have played for a while, but I liked the idea. Many of the newer players may not have a Steelix, especially in the Shiny form. I only have a shiny due to a trade. Also, Onix is very forgiving for the newer players and the Special Researches since the target circles are very large even for Great and Excellent throws:

• A Ripple in Time: Stage 7 – Make an Excellent Curveball Throw
• A Mythical Discovery: Stage 2 – Make 10 Great Throws; Stage 5 – Make 20 Great Throws; Stage 7 – Make an Excellent Curveball Throw
• Let’s GO Meltan: Stage 2 – Make 10 Great Throws; Stage 5 – Make 20 Great Throws
• A Thousand Year Slumber: Stage 3 – Make 3 Great Throws in a Row; Stage 6 Make 3 Excellent Curveball Throws

Granted, one hour will not finish all of those quests, but at least if some of the Great Throws can be done and maybe one excellent curveball can be made, that would help a lot of the newer players through these quests. Even if the player hits an excellent curveball before they get the quest, there is a confidence boost in that they hit one before. Even the more experienced players can renew their skills.

Then came Spoink which I have not seen a whole lot of, but really do not have any interest in and then a general extra spawn night. Not too bad, but I would like to see some other Pokemon that would make sense.

The first type are those that are in the Special Researches. When these Special Researches are first released, the necessary Pokemon are pretty easy to find. However, for players who missed out on the Special Research when it is first released, finding the requisite Pokemon is quite difficult. I remember when I needed Lileep or Anorith, they were so hard to find since I got to Let’s GO Meltan Stage 8 way after it was released. The following list are those Pokemon which qualify for this:

• Oddish (Gloom) and Sunkern (A Ripple in Time Stage 3)
• Magikarp (A Mythical Discovery Stage 6)
• Grimer & Slugma/Gulpin (Let’s GO Meltan Stage 5)
• Magnemite & Exeggute (Let’s GO Meltan Stage 6)
• Drowzee, Cubone, & Scyther (Let’s GO Meltan Stage 7)
• Omanyet/Kabuto, Lileep/Anorith & Aerodactyl (Let’s GO Meltan Stage 8)
• Dratini (Jump Start Research Stage 6 – Evolve a Dragonair, though they give enough candies for evolution, I would prefer having a good Dragonair if possible)
• Whismur & Feebas (A Thousand Year Slumber Stage 2)
• There are other general “Catch x of a certain type or types” that can also be examined. Also, other larger/easier to Great/Excellent Curveball Pokemon (Snover being a prime example not mentioned) would be great for this.

Another type would be those Pokemon who are single evolution or no evolution, but have some special reason why they should be on Spotlight Day. Example: Vulpix would be proper here when the Shiny is released. An hour would be long enough to gain plenty of Vulpix candies. Remember, they evolve at 50 candies, not double evolve at 125. The shiny rate would need to be tweaked much like Community Day’s ratio, so most players would have a Shiny or two at least. If a special move is also put out, that would be OK.

Another type would be a small sample of the various types of Pokemon. One Spotlight Hour be just for Dragons, one for just Poison type, one for just Ice type, and so on. This would allow players work on their type medals. Another idea would be to have greater spawning of the lesser common Pokemon in each type to allow for Pokedex work.

With all of this, it would be nice if Spotlight Hour was occasionally on Saturday or Sunday too. I cannot really do more than one night out a week playing the game with the dedication that Spotlight Hour would need. I do Wednesday Night Raids since that is more social and fun for me. A lot of others who need to commute from work and have a family to come home to may have this problem. Maybe make this a tag along with Community Day (Galarian Weezing’s debut comes to mind as a great example) or a couple weeks before/after Community Day as well.

UPDATE: February 24, 2020 – Spotlight Night and Mystery Bonus Hour (which was not originally covered here, but a similar idea, where each week there is a bonus to candies, stardust, or similar) have been cancelled this week. Hopefully they will be retooled and put on a rotation whereas they are sometimes on weekends as well and weeknights. I truly think that these ideas are great and will help everyone, including rural and newer players.

UPDATE: March 3, 2020: After the week off, once again there was a “general spawn increase”. I was hoping that after the week off it would go back to a specific Pokemon character. Come on Niantic.